"Love and Death"
A sermon by Rev. Judy Tomlinson
August 30, 2009
READINGS ANCIENT AND MODERN:
Our Ancient Reading is The Time Before Death by Kabir:
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think... and think... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time
before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will rejoin with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten--
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the
City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next
life you will have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
Our Modern Reading is by Helen Keller:
We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all
the world - the company who has know suffering. When it seems that
our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family
of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance,
and inevitably we will feel about us then, their arms, their sympathy,
their understanding.
SERMON:
There is a Buddhist story called The Mustard Seed Medicine that
goes like this. . .
Once upon a time there lived a young mother whose name was Kisa
Gotami. She had a son whom she loved above all else in the world.
She loved him when he was happy and cooperative and she loved him
when he was grumpy and whiney. She even loved him when he had tantrums.
There came a time when the young boy became very ill. Doctors and
healers were not able to cure him, and he died. Kisa was beside
herself with grief. She picked up the boy's body
and wrapped it in blankets, carrying it about the village asking
everyone she met if they knew how to bring her son back to life.
One kind friend suggested that she visit the Enlightened One, who
would surely be able to help her.
Kisa approached the Buddha, carrying her son's body and weeping.
"Please help me! Please tell me how to bring my son back to
life."
The Buddha looked at her and felt great compassion. "I can
help you," he said. "But first you must bring me some
mustard seed from a home where no loved one has ever died, no parent
or grandparent, no bother or sister, no child or much-loved friend."
Sensing hope for the first time since her son had died, Kisa went
back home and laid her son's body on the bed. She set out to find
some mustard seed.
The first place Kisa visited was the house next door. She knocked
and waited. When her neighbor came to the door, Kisa asked for a
handful of mustard seed. "Why, of course, Kisa. I'll be right
back."
As the neighbor woman was about to hand her the mustard seed, Kisa
remembered to ask if anyone from the household had ever died.
"Kisa, don't you remember? My father died a year ago, and
we were sad for a long time.
We still miss him."
Dejected, Kisa went away without taking the mustard seed.
When Kisa visited a second house and asked for mustard seed, that
neighbor reminded her that a beloved niece had died in that house
five years ago. Sadly, Kisa went away without any mustard seed.
So Kisa proceeded from house to house, visiting every home in the
village. At each stop, the family spoke of a nephew, a mother, a
grandparent, or a beloved child who had died. Each family told a
tale of grief and loss.
When she had visited the last house in the village, it became clear
to Kisa that what the Buddha had asked her to do was impossible.
She was overcome with sadness and could not go any further. She
found a banyan tree at the edge of the village and sat down to cry.
Kisa cried for hours. . . .
Over time, though, a strange peace came over her. She thought about
all the stories she had heard that day, of loved ones who had died
and of families who had experienced terrible sadness. She realized
that she was not alone in experiencing the death of someone she
loved. She was not alone in her grief and her sadness.
The next day she returned to the Buddha. When she told him of her
search for the mustard seed that could not be found, he nodded.
"Our lives in this world are not permanent. Each one of us
must die, some at a young age and some older. All of us will know
times of great happiness and times of deep sorrow. Do not try to
keep yourself free from these human experiences. Try instead to
be kind and compassionate to all beings, enjoying all the gifts
that life brings.
As time passed, Kisa became a comforter of all who experienced
sadness and death. Even though she always missed her son, she learned
to accept his death and to take comfort in knowing that she was
not alone in her grief.
As Helen Keller said, "We bereaved are not alone. We belong
to the largest company in all the world-the company who has known
suffering. . .our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably we
will feel about us then, their arms, their sympathy, their understanding.
In January, my mother who is 89 years old and lives in California,
was hospitalized with pneumonia. I went to see her in February,
and although she had come home from the hospital, my siblings and
I were not very hopeful for her recovery. I made plans to visit
her again after General Assembly in June, unless her decline took
me there sooner.
I was sad and I was scared. I wasn't ready to face my mother's
death and didn't quite know how to prepare myself. So while I was
at GA in the UU bookstore, I saw a display of Rev. Forrest Church's
latest book, Love and Death. It is about his life long exploration
of these linked topics, intensified by his diagnosis with esophageal
cancer three years ago.
It was then that I decided, "I'll preach on death and dying
because we, as a congregation,
and in our own lives, have experienced so much death this year.
And I'll teach a class on it in the Fall." In other words I
decided to plunge myself into the subject, and normalize it so that
maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when the time came.
What was I thinking?
Grief, I've read so many times this week, is the price we pay for
love. It is the emotional response to loss. Rabbi Earl Grollman,
who has written several books publish by our UU Beacon Press, including
one on talking with children about death, says that, "Grief
is nature's way of healing a broken heart." And while I may
begin to grieve the inevitable now, it will not shield me when my
mother's time comes.
As we face illness or loss, Forrest Church writes, "Don't
ask 'Why me?' Rather ask 'Where do we go from here?' And make sure
that part of that answer includes 'Where do we go together?' "
The first death that I remember was the death of Uncle Raymond,
not really my uncle but my father's cousin. I must have been 4 or
5 years old. My parents got a call from Uncle Raymond's family that
he had died and they went to comfort my Aunt Marge. I wanted to
attend the funeral but they said I was too young.
Rabbi Grollman was interviewed by UU World magazine back in 2000,
and when the interviewer asked him about the age at what children
should be allowed to attend funerals he said, "I used to say
that children as young as seven should be allowed to attend funerals
and I've changed since then. I now think from the ages of three,
four, and five they should be allowed, under the conditions that
you explain what it's all about and what's going to happen.
If the child would like to go, things need to be explained and perhaps,
they would like to bring a friend for support. Children understand
their inclusion far better than their exclusion.
Anything that is mentionable is much more manageable."
I've always said that it is important to have young life at funerals,
it is important for the children to be included and important for
the adults. If they hear a baby babble or cry it is not a disruption
but a reminder that, while this life has ended, Life itself will
still go on.
My parents didn't have the benefit or Rabbi Grollman's wisdom.
The lesson from Uncle Raymond's death was the need to be included.
I have experienced three great losses in my life, not all deaths.
I'll tell you about just one this morning. My brother David was
a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War. He died in July 12, 1968,
just 23 days after he was deployed and 2 days after his 24th birthday.
His helicopter engine failed. The helicopter crashed and all aboard
were killed.
To tell the truth, it took me 31 years to heal from his death and,
though the healing is a mystery to me I know its context. It was
a lesson very much like Kisa's that helped me find peace. I was
working as a hospital chaplain and witnessed many deaths, from a
child of no more than two years old to people who had lived long
and full lives. I saw people on dialysis who did not ask "why
me" but came in for their treatments three times a week and
then one day their chair would be filled by someone new. I knew
I was not alone in grieving. I experienced the deep pain of my own
loss years ago but by this time it was no longer acute.
I witnessed and stood with, held hands and prayed with those whose
pain was raw. And we were part of that great company.
What the losses have taught me is that grief will have its way
and will take its own time. It can be very intense, causing disruption
in all of our systems: physical, emotional and spiritual. It can
cause depression, changes in our eating, sleeping, social activities
and connections.
It can cause a crisis of faith or send one on a deeper spiritual
journey. It can cause us to selfishly focus on ourselves and even
use the loss in a manipulative way.
Or, as I wonder about Senator Ted Kennedy, whose wealth certainly
did not insulate him
or other members of his family from illness and death, can it give
us a perspective on life that asks, us as we face life's daily challenges,
"How important is it?"
Loss and grief can help us reorder our priorities as individuals
or as 9/11 and Katrina did for us for a time as a nation. It can
help us to focus on closely held values of contributing to the greater
good.
We are too often mired in thinking that revenge and an equalizing
of pain will help us feel better, when the truth is that grief,
as Forrest Church says, can be at its best a sacrament.
"Death is central to my definition of religion," he writes.
"Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being
alive and having to die . . . Knowing that we must die, we question
what life means. The answers we arrive at may not be religious answers,
but the questions death forces us to ask are, at heart, religious
questions: 'Where did I come from? Who am I? Where am I going? What
is life's purpose?' " He also writes that "Love and death
are allies. When a loved one dies, the greater the pain, the greater
love's proof. Such grief is a sacrament. Sacraments bring us together.
The measure of our grief testifies to the power of our love."
Life teaches us that healing can take place, but that we must be
patient with ourselves. It teaches that healing can come from unexpected
sources, and that even in the midst of pain, humor and even joy
in life continue. As one writer says, nothing would so dishonor
life so muchas to make our lives drab in counterfeit respect for
a lost loved one.
I have also learned that while we may need time alone during our
grieving, it is immensely important not to isolate and blame. It
is important to have the support of friends, family and religious
community and ritual. The ritual ceremony of a memorial service
breaks through the magical thinking and denial that try to shield
us from the reality of the loss. And, it brings an outpouring of
love, a balm that begins to lessen the intensity of the pain.
I have learned that it is natural to cry and that anything can
trigger a bout of tears. Rabbi Grollman, had a parent turn to him
asking for advice. "My daughter is taking her father's death
so terribly. Maybe I should send her to a psychiatrist. She cries
and cries and doesn't seem to care about anything."
"When did your husband die?" Grollman asked.
"Two days ago." The mother replied.
Grollman writes, "Grief is not a disorder, a disease, or a
sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical, and spiritual necessity,
the price you pay for love."
Loss also brings us face to face with the fact that life is finite.
Robert Fulghum, a Unitarian Universalist minister and author of
Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, has written
that many people, when they find out they have a limited time to
live, "finally start living well. They simplify their lives,
spend time with those they love, slow down, and get around to doing
many things they had put off. . . . After they know they are going
to die, people often live and die well. Let me announce, then to
you," he writes, "You have a limited time to live."
One of the things we can do while we are living and dying well,
is to prepare for our own eventual demise. You know we are a community
covenanted to search for truth and meaning
and so we grapple with some of life's most complex issues: sex,
politics and death. I think we could probably have some really important
conversations about money as well, but that is for another day.
So in the search for truth, we face the fact that we will not only
lose loved ones, but that we ourselves will die one fine day. One
of the gifts we can leave to those who will grieve our passing is
to have prepared for that day. So it is time to start thinking about
how much care we want at the end of our lives, you know the way
the Congress has proposed in the health care reform bill which some
seem so frightened of.
Yes, we should all take the time to fill out an Advance Directive
and a Living Will. Which are, by the way, things Unitarian Universalists
and others have been doing since the 1970s.
Yes, we should think and talk about what kind of medical care we
want and make a record of it before we get too sick to decide on
our own. We should choose how we want our remains to be dealt with.
We should share with our loved ones some of our favorite readings
or music, things that give meaning to our lives right now. While
it may be scary to begin these conversations they can in fact, give
us the opportunity to deepen our relationships with those who are
close to us.
Of course, this kind of vulnerability does take courage and love.
Courage to face our own passing and, the sadness that it might generate
in ourselves and others. Courage to look that pain in the face and
acknowledge it. But, rather than be undone by it, to feel the warmth
of love's arms enfold us or take us by the hand and lead us more
fully into life.
When we are done, Mother Earth lovingly embraces us again. From
star dust to star dust we go as the wide, Infinite welcomes us back
home. We belong to the Earth. But before we return to her, consciously
or no, we pour our lives into the lives that come after us. Life,
as Forrest Church says, is poured from one vessel into the next
and has done so since life began, from time immemorial. And so we
really are one family. Not just one human family, we share our ancestry
and our destiny with all living things.
And we watched such a poignant moment yesterday when the youngest
Kennedys were ever so intentionally passed the torch of social consciousness
and public service by their Uncle and Grandfather Teddie, as they
spoke his words and his beliefs to those assembled in the church
and those watching across the nation and the world. As I thought
about it, I was hoping that Senator Kennedy, and our President Barak
Obama, and our former Presidents and Secretary of State would begin
to raise the next generation of generous and compassionate Americans.
Jimmy Carter has already made that his legacy.
But then I realized, it is not just our visible and vocal leaders
who have this responsibility,
but we ourselves. Through our families, our congregations and our
public institutions we need to insist that these structures that
form the fabric of our lives reflect the qualities which, I think
most of us agree, make a person or a country great, and heroic-hard
work and perseverance for the greater good even in the face of loss
and moral failings, human contact and concern, learning from and
redeeming ourselves from our failings, and transforming our lives,
in spite of our losses, into ones of meaning and purpose, full of
love and beauty.
The love that is poured from generation to generation and the
love that is poured out as a friend or family member or even a national
leader is ill and dying, that love sanctifies our lives. And in
its light and in our loved one's honor we continue and pray that
we are worthy of this most precious gift.
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